Post by Hashmal on Mar 5, 2018 23:22:52 GMT

Cygnar has been a bugbear of mine for some time. Always a tough matchup when played well. One thing that's got my goat recently has been the amazing efficiency of electro leaps. I played a few games back-to-back where squads of my infantry were just removed from the board without my opponent making a single attack roll against me. Because they can trigger e-leaps off their own models, clumping near a high ARM target just won't work. If Cygnar has e-leaps and wants your Idrians dead, they're dead.

Rather than get mad, I went to the drawing board and created an entire list of Protectorate stuff that's countered by electro leap. Consider this post a data dump. If you're building into Cygnar and wondering about your vulnerability to electro leap, you can look at this list and see what's on it. I also tried to categorize how badly each thing is countered by e-leap. In some cases, it's not a huge deal. In others, it cripples the entry's functionality.

General Note: Anything that relies on high DEF to survive will die to e-leaps. This is not an uncommon phenomenon, as blast damage is used to circumvent high DEF routinely. However, unlike blasts, spreading out does less against e-leaps than it should, as Cygnar can trigger the leaps by running one of their own lightning immune models in between your spread out models, creating a locus point to fry them anyway. And it's pretty hard to spread an entire squad out more than 4" from each other.

Also, I am *really* steamed that e-leaps negate the Faithful Masses bonus Hand of Vengeance. I am trying to think of another instance where an easily accessible faction ability trivially denies an entire theme force benefit.Warcasters

Durst

• Bulwark

• Deceleration

• Hallowed Avenger (Enemy Attack)

Analysis: Durst is okay into e-leaps, but bear in mind that your Errants will get zapped. If you are playing a bunch of 'jacks, this isn't a big deal.

Analysis: Not crippled, but Nemo3 leaps can really mess up your light Warjacks.

High Reclaimer

• Soul Taker: Reclaim (Enemy Attack)

• Burning Ash (Concealment from Cloud)

Analysis: Not crippled per se but losing soul collection hurts. Hand of Fate is still a great thing, so not the end of the world. Also they can just zap your stuff behind clouds, so that's not good either.

Testament

• Soul Taker: Reclaim (Enemy Attack)

• Cloak of Ash

• Dust to Dust (Concealment from Cloud)

• Hallowed Avenger (Enemy Attack)

Analysis: Hurt pretty bad. Testament loses souls and almost all of his defensive tech. Plus the Exemplars he likes to take hate e-leaps. However, he can at least Revive models killed by them.

Malekus

• Ashen Veil

Analysis: Just be careful with your AV'd target.

Reznik2

• Lamentations of Suffering

Analysis: Only really relevant in the Nemo3 matchup. POW 12s with three dice will put punishment on Reznik2 and tempt him to blow his stack. Not crippled but camp up until that Feat is used.

Thyra

• Stealth

• Occultation

Analysis: Thyra dies to e-leaps. While Nemo3 is hot, be *very* careful with her. And your Stealth target will die trivially.

Vindictus

• Call to Sacrifice (Enemy Attack)

• Feat: Divine Protection

Analysis: Severely hurt. Vindy really relies on his Feat to deliver his army and e-leaps just ignore that. Bear this in mind when selecting lists.

Warjacks/BE

Blood of Martyrs

• Hand of Vengeance (Enemy Attack)

Analysis: Hurt, but not crippled. Cygnar 'jacks are not hardy and will still die handily to Blood sporting Shadows of Death, Carnage, and Battle.

Castigator, Sanctifier, Reckoner

• Ashen Veil

Analysis: Fine. It's not like Cygnar had trouble hitting these guys to begin with.

Analysis: Severely hurt. Cygnar is one of the few factions that can effectively scalpel out Pyrrhus by negating his defensive tech.

Reclaimer Gatekeeper

• Ashen Veil

• Ashes of Urcaen

• Obscuring Haze (Concealment from cloud)

Analysis: Moderately hurt. Funny enough, e-leaps don't impact his soul collection so the Gatekeeper still has game. However, if you were planning to use him for something besides Future Sight, you might want to rethink that.

Vassal

• Enliven (Enemy Attack)

Analysis: Mostly fine. E-leaps won't trigger Enliven, which honestly may be to your advantage in some cases where Cygnar tries to bait an Enliven before committing. Empower is still great, so the Vassal does good. Ironically, he dies to e-leaps handily and is vulnerable to them with his pitiful CMD range.

Wrack

• Suffering’s Prayer

Analysis: Fine. E-leaps deny their entire defensive tech, but it's pretty rare for them to spend the effort to kill these things.

Analysis: Moderately hurt. It's hard to get a ton of damage on Cinerators with normal e-leaps, but losing that extra bit of threat when it happens is really annoying.

Exemplar Errants

• Self-Sacrifice (Enemy Attack)

Analysis: Severely hurt. Errants die to POW 12 e-leaps unless they are armor buffed and you lose their main special rule. Playable, but will be much less impactful than normal.

Exemplar Vengers

• Battle Driven (Enemy Attack)

Analysis: Annoying normally, but brutal with Nemo3. You stand a coin flip of losing a full health Venger per POW 12 e-leap.

Flameguard Cleansers

• Ashen Veil

Analysis: Fine. Cleansers don't have a high DEF to begin with. The bigger problem is how easy it is for leaps to clear low ARM infantry.

Holy Zealots (Monolith Bearer)

• Sacrificial Pawn (Enemy Attack)

• Holy Monolith (Enemy Attack)

Analysis: Crippled. Zealots won't get their ARM bonus from e-leaps and the Monolith Bearer can't shunt damage away. They will be cleaned out.

Idrian Skirmishers

• Go to Ground

Analysis: Crippled. Idrians rely on high DEF to live and get shredded by e-leaps.

Knights Exemplar

• Battle-Driven (Enemy Attack)

Analysis: Fine, though you wouldn't think it. POW 12 e-leaps kill ARM 17 Knights only a little less often than ARM 15. Losing the POW doesn't matter because nothing in Cygnar likes being charged by POW 11 Weaponmasters. They can scalpel out the UA if you're not careful, though, which does suck.

Post by Hashmal on Mar 6, 2018 0:01:07 GMT

I would personally be fine if they made it so it couldn't trigger off lightning immune models and then eratta'd Chain Lightning and Ashes to Ashes to employ the same functionality. If they want to trigger e-leaps off their own stuff, fine, but there should at least be *some* risk to that.

Post by demonic on Mar 6, 2018 5:30:13 GMT

they'll never negate the bouncing off their own units trick as it is actually Cannon... yes, in the story for cygnar they use their own units in such a fashion. E-leaps are only powerful on engagement turn and with the firefly/nemo3 lists where you are getting ganked by pow 12s with 3 dice. If you can force them to pop it early well... that's why nemo3 is being combined with Halley3.

Pow 10s, even with 3 dice, average out at 19 damage... or our average heavy's armor. You can use just crusaders to completely annihilate storm division lists, especially with a way to knock out channeling and upkeep spells.

Combine Durant2 with Vessel of Judgement in a creator's might list. Use an indictor (which I'd usually suggest against) and anything else with a powerful weapon and 19+ armor. Remember that all e-leaps have been nerfed down to 1 jump except for a few, thus you have a real advantage of putting your meat heads up front. e-leaps biggest weakness is that it MUST target the closest model without electric immunity. Storm division is actually super fluffy, but when you combine upkeep spells and special abilities they suddenly look like a fortress. In front of blessed weapons or a Vessel of Judgement, they are basic arm 15 units. Even on nemo's feat, if you focused on fireflies and other e-leap boosters, you're looking at your basic weaponmaster units with an extra hit that can barely chip paint. Next turn, have both Durant2 and Vessel of Judgement use their healing spells and tadah! One of the keys, though, is to choose jacks with both 19+ armor AND a beefy weapon. Stormdivision will not be able to take the freestrike and, thus, get pummeled whenever they try to go in for an assassination.

Post by killroundears on Mar 6, 2018 11:22:51 GMT

they'll never negate the bouncing off their own units trick as it is actually Cannon... yes, in the story for cygnar they use their own units in such a fashion. E-leaps are only powerful on engagement turn and with the firefly/nemo3 lists where you are getting ganked by pow 12s with 3 dice. If you can force them to pop it early well... that's why nemo3 is being combined with Halley3.

Pow 10s, even with 3 dice, average out at 19 damage... or our average heavy's armor. You can use just crusaders to completely annihilate storm division lists, especially with a way to knock out channeling and upkeep spells.

Combine Durant2 with Vessel of Judgement in a creator's might list. Use an indictor (which I'd usually suggest against) and anything else with a powerful weapon and 19+ armor. Remember that all e-leaps have been nerfed down to 1 jump except for a few, thus you have a real advantage of putting your meat heads up front. e-leaps biggest weakness is that it MUST target the closest model without electric immunity. Storm division is actually super fluffy, but when you combine upkeep spells and special abilities they suddenly look like a fortress. In front of blessed weapons or a Vessel of Judgement, they are basic arm 15 units. Even on nemo's feat, if you focused on fireflies and other e-leap boosters, you're looking at your basic weaponmaster units with an extra hit that can barely chip paint. Next turn, have both Durant2 and Vessel of Judgement use their healing spells and tadah! One of the keys, though, is to choose jacks with both 19+ armor AND a beefy weapon. Stormdivision will not be able to take the freestrike and, thus, get pummeled whenever they try to go in for an assassination.

Apart from you being the most optimistic man alive, your dice math is seriously wrong. the average of 3 dice is 10.5, not 9, and even then, spikes upwards are more impactful than spikes downwards (because spikes downwards are 0, not negative). If you've never seen eleaps spike and roast heavies before i'd be very surprised. Especially if theres a whole lot of them

Post by Hashmal on Mar 6, 2018 13:40:28 GMT

To the point of the thread, I am not looking for a central location to wishlist about what e-leaps should be changed to or kvetch about perceived imbalances. There are more than enough threads on that. They may change. They may not. Right now, however, they are what they are and I would rather focus conversation on how best to deal with them.

This thought exercise led me to create a durable Sevy1 list with a lot of firepower that is not vulnerable to them, for example. I use 2x Battle Engines along with 2x Reckoners and Blessing to get both infantry control and hard-hitting ranged firepower. I took it on a test run last week and shot both a Kraye 4 Centurion list and a Ravyn list straight off the board. Into Kara Sloan 5x Hunters 2x Storm Striders, it did less well. What mattered most was the roll to go first. I lost it and thus he got to strike first and did enough attrition to defeat me. Had I gone first, I would have gotten off the first round and likely won. It was literally the difference between a living Battle Engine and a dead one.

What are you playing to counter strong e-leap and lightning generator-focused lists like Nemo3?

Post by paradox on Mar 6, 2018 13:48:39 GMT

One difficulty I have not really solved are leaps off the VoJ. Inevitably, you'll have a mechanic move in to fix it and end up B2B. It dies to a leap next turn. An expensive proposition to fix the BE that damages itself as a feature. During the BE CID, my VoJ and double VoJ lists repeatedly fell prey to stormstriders.

The issue with playing into leaps is the tortured formations you need to effectively ground them out. My response has generally been to write off support, and try to position so that I can retaliate. Its an uphill battle most games because they are direct hitting for damage and culling support free in many cases.

Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Mar 6, 2018 13:54:49 GMT

Against a double Storm Strider list Menoth should do ok as the only way to give them magical guns is either Siege 1 with Explosivo, or Aiyana and Holt. Nemo 3 has no way to make the Strider Magical, and without the direct hits from the Striders their damage output drops significantly

Post by jisidro on Mar 6, 2018 14:42:27 GMT

I agree with most of what is said here... but then I think of Harbinger and her absolute denial of abilities triggering off destroyed models unless denied herself... of the Errants ability to also deny those abilities by triggering self-sac and of the immortal contester... Along with e-leap fixing I'd like MArtyrdoom, Self-sac and Bonds not to work while advancing.

Post by macdaddy on Mar 6, 2018 14:57:35 GMT

Against a double Storm Strider list Menoth should do ok as the only way to give them magical guns is either Siege 1 with Explosivo, or Aiyana and Holt. Nemo 3 has no way to make the Strider Magical, and without the direct hits from the Striders their damage output drops significantly

I mean sure...until you battle...or maybe they just target their own model to remove your Chior. Good nemo3 players should be able to mitigate the impact of Chior by murderizing them.

Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Mar 6, 2018 15:21:31 GMT

Against a double Storm Strider list Menoth should do ok as the only way to give them magical guns is either Siege 1 with Explosivo, or Aiyana and Holt. Nemo 3 has no way to make the Strider Magical, and without the direct hits from the Striders their damage output drops significantly

I mean sure...until you battle...or maybe they just target their own model to remove your Chior. Good nemo3 players should be able to mitigate the impact of Chior by murderizing them.

By the time you battle you should be removing the Striders/Dynamo off the table so the reprisal is greatly reduced. Also just keep your choir more than 4" away from your jacks and 4" from each other as far back as possible, even with running stuff to spark off the Cygnar player is unlikely to be able to reach them

If you use your jacks as a vanguard, the chances of them getting a spark node within 4" of a choir member, and it not be closer to one of your jacks instead should be pretty easy for you to set up position wise